


Wolves at the Door

by grimfey (renardroi)



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom
Genre: Blood and Injury, Gen, Pre-Imprisonment Clay | Dream, The Hound Army (Dream SMP), Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:27:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29425269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renardroi/pseuds/grimfey
Summary: He should not be here. He knows this, and the hounds know it.The wind howls past the doorway. Their master is not with him, because he is an idiot.
Kudos: 6





	Wolves at the Door

**Author's Note:**

> CW: blood + injury from animal attacks and also teleporting (using enderpearls)
> 
> note that this is after Tommy gets out of his exile, but before the final confrontations (and before Dream is imprisoned). Tommy does not feature in this fic at all, he's just an excuse for Dream to be visiting the area.

_ For a brief while your strength is in bloom _ _   
_ _ but it fades quickly; and soon there will follow _ _   
_ _ illness or the sword to lay you low, _ _   
_ _ or a sudden fire or surge of water _ _   
_ _ or jabbing blade or javelin from the air _ _   
_ _ or repellent age. Your piercing eye _ _   
_ _ will dim and darken; and death will arrive, _ _   
_ _ dear warrior, to sweep you away. _

* * *

He doesn’t realize his mistake until it’s too late. 

In his mind, Dream knows that Tommy isn’t here, not anymore. But ever since the boy’s falling out with Technoblade, it’s been hard to keep track of him. He’s squirrely, now that his alliances are falling apart. The only one he has now is with Tubbo, but Snowchester doesn’t mesh well with the unending torrent of chaos that makes up Tommy’s entire being. At least, Dream doesn’t think so. No, not Snowchester. But if not with Tommy, then where? 

He had come looking for a trail, or if not that then at least some idea of where his morale is at. Most people are easy to predict, to control and maneuver into the right places, but this one’s just a little bit harder, especially when Dream is getting tired of relying on the discs to do the heavy lifting. 

Despite their small falling out, and conflicts in the past, Dream is fairly certain that Tommy still has a soft spot for The Blade, and suspects that Techno himself might have a smaller but equally soft spot for the tumbleweed of teenaged angst as well. It's odd, considering how quick the two are to hold grudges, but Dream doesn't care to psychoanalyze the both of them, and what they see in each other. He's here to pick up the scent trail again. But there is none of that here, only half-tame, territorial wolves.

The light in the cabin that Tommy had made with Ghostbur, shoddy and unfinished but now sporting a roof, is dim and flickering. This place is so poorly made that flurries are coming in through cracks in the walls and holes in the ceiling. Only one torch has been left lit inside, at the far end of the building, but Dream, stepping through the doorway and shouldering the door open, is letting in brilliant snow-scattered light that is suddenly reflected back up at him. The hounds are flickering mass in front of him, cast in shadow, but their eyes lit like full moons in that unabashedly animalistic way. All of them turn to stare at him. He should not be here. He knows this, and the hounds know it. 

The wind howls past the doorway. Their master is not with him, because he is an idiot.

Dream blames his slow reaction to the hounds on his lack of sleep. The fact of the matter is that he has reflexes better than any human, but it’s not enough to counteract the fog in his brain. If he was quicker, if he had been more prepared, if he had merely thought about what he was doing and where he was going before jumping into it, he could have been ready and simply shut the door and left, but he’s slow and blinking. 

One of the hounds snarls, a deep and guttural sound that’s too close. Just beside him, by his ankle. He had been looking out at the dozens of wolves huddled near the torch and the water, away from the snow near the door, and had neglected to pay attention to the ones lurking where the shadows were darkest, just on the edges of the beam of light coming through the doorway. It’s a silly mistake, like this whole endeavor, but he jerks back in surprise at the realization of how close the wolf is, and stumbles back out of the cabin. 

Should have held his ground. If he didn't want to be prey, he shouldn't have acted like something to be hunted. 

The room descends into chaos. Only a few wolves, including the one that had startled Dream, manage to slip out the door after him before the rest of them fall like an avalanche against the door. The horde is a snarling mass, shutting the door on themselves in their eagerness, and it would almost be comical if it weren’t so terrible. The door and walls have been made by a child and a ghost, and aren’t going to stand up to the full force of the pack - that much is clear. 

Dream draws his sword and bolts. 

He isn’t unprepared, at least. He has  _ Nightmare  _ in hand, and armor with enchantment aplenty, but these are tools of combat. Dream likes combat. Combat is civil, and clean even with its unfairness; it has rules in the shape of form, gear, skill and mutual understanding. He enjoys the structure of it, has an affinity for the way humans do things, he has to when he spends so much time around them. Over the years, he’s made it his business to master the many aspects of combat, but deep in his bones he knows that he still belongs to the wild places, to the Hunt. 

He can feel that draw in the thrumming of his blood as he sprints over the snow, running over his own tracks as he makes for the portal he had come through to get here. Of course, this is not the side of the Hunt that he wishes to be on, not in the slightest. But that’s the nature of wild things, it’s reliant entirely on luck and numbers. His luck has turned and he doesn’t have the privilege of numbers at the moment. 

The wolves are a host at his back, the earlybirds who had made it out nipping at his heels and growling encouragement as he runs. When he realizes that he has to tuck his tail to keep it from being crushed in the teeth of bored and bloodthirsty wolves, Dream’s shock sours and turns to blind anger. He whirls on the hounds, swinging his sword without any precision, aiming only for the vague sounds and moving shapes of white. The white fur on white snow, in the middle of a blizzard doesn’t make it easy, but one of the wolves crashes into him headlong, snarling and sinking its teeth into the greaves. 

His sword swings down onto the wolf’s spine easily, and blood sprays across the snow. In the same beat, the enchantment on his armor pulses and illusory thorns sink into the wolf’s throat. It gags, and makes a horrible hacking sound, but before it even lets go of Dream, another wolf launches itself at him. 

They’re smart enough, he’ll give them that. The second hound goes for his throat, its huge paws landing on his chest. With the first wolf still clinging to his leg, it’s impossible for him to keep his balance, and he falls backward into the snow while the second one tries to chew on the gorget protecting his neck. Dream is quick to recover, using both arms to shove the massive creature to the side, ignoring how it snaps its teeth an inch from his face, and following through with a swing from his sword. 

It’s not enough to take the wolf down, only make it retreat for a moment. It dances backwards, and then circles around behind Dream as it growls. He’s forced to shake the first wolf free and get to his feet quickly, not enough time to check his stance or his center of balance because he needs to keep an eye on his enemies. As he stands, Dream belatedly realizes he can feel something wet and warm on his calf. Either dog drool or blood, possibly even his own, considering how unsteady he feels, but he can’t check right now. 

And this is the problem with fighting nature. Numbers, chance, they’re always what he’s fighting - not the wolves. He can kill a wolf.  _ One  _ won’t get through his armor. But two? Two might unbalance him. And three? Well. 

A third and final wolf bowls into him, big and heavy and sinking its teeth into the exact same spot the first had. Numbers. Chance. It clamps its teeth down onto the first thing it can and shakes its head violently. The snow underneath Dream’s foot has started to turn slick, the leather straps on his greaves are already weakened, and the wolf just manages to find a grip on the greaves’ leather straps and tear through. His foot slips, an inch or two in the snow melt and blood, and he has to throw out his sword arm to try to keep his balance, too busy staying upright to stop the wolf’s fangs from sinking into his calf. 

An almighty crash resounds across the snowy plains, and Dream realizes that the damp and fragile doors keeping the other dogs at bay have finally given, and he’s still trying to fend off a measly two. One and a half, more like. 

The injured one feigns a lunge, jaws snapping loudly, and Dream does the same back, snarling in frustration as the hound tearing at his ankle tries to unbalance him. His skin is flushing with anger, white hot and with nowhere to go. He wants blood, wants to feel  _ Nightmare  _ bite into tissue and bone under his hand, but bloodlust won’t help him here. No time to equip his shield, and if he focuses his attacks on either of the two, the other one will no doubt manage to knock him over. He swings his sword in loose arcs, keeping the massive white wolf a pace or two away, and tries to figure out a plan to get to his pearls. 

He’ll need two hands to grab an enderpearl from his bag, unless he wants to risk leaving his stuff behind. But he needs his sword. Skin and bone can heal, he thinks as he stumbles a little. But the longer he has to heal, the more his plans for the server are delayed. Time is of the essence. Things, tools, food, those can be replaced, he reasons. But certain things falling into the wrong hands could go very wrong for him. 

His items or his health - that was the tithe that nature was demanding from him, and he had to pick soon or be trampled underfoot, torn asunder. As if to remind him that time is slipping away, Dream’s armor pulses again, and once more the illusory thorns 

Dream sheaths his sword like it's burned him. It takes an extraordinary amount of concentration not to flinch as the blood-whetted blade slides into the leather. There’s going to be no cleaning that; it’ll have to be replaced entirely. He swings his bag down from his shoulder as quickly as he can, keeping both eyes on the massive hound that has no doubt spotted an opportunity. 

Compared to the icy landscape around him, the pearls are practically warm to the touch. They’re tucked into their own pocket, stitched onto the inside of the bag in what he had thought was a clever little pocket, but as he fumbles to retrieve one of the marble-sized objects he wonders if it might not have been better to put them in something more accessible. 

As he yanks a pearl free, the hot blood puddling around his foot suddenly becomes too much, and at the same time the wolf lunges - no doubt for real this time. Dream only has enough time to bring the pearl up to his eye for a heartbeat, its titanium weight and the fuzzy sensation it gives his fingertips a comfort even as he accepts his impending doom. He doesn’t wait to see the pearl blink back at him before he reels back and lets it loose over the snow. 

And then he falls, his foot dragged out from under him and angry fur and teeth crashing into his shoulder. On instinct Dream brings his arm up to protect his neck, and it's just as well because as soon as he does he feels the sting of teeth bearing down on his bracers. 

He waits for the shift, the pull of the pearl as it breaks upon the ground, the feeling of being buried. 

And waits. 

Snow is going down the back of his collar, bitterly cold. It grounds him in the moment as he struggles. He’s not trying to get away, and he can’t hold his breath. It’s not good for pearl-ing. 

And waits. 

Dream tries to get to his bag, to wrench it out from underneath the snarling. The snarling. He can feel it against his chest, just as clearly as he feels claws against his ribs, snow melting in his hair. If the pearl didn’t break, if the snow cushioned its fall, he’ll need another. 

And waits. 

Hot, wet dripping onto his face. Blood. Definitely his own, and it’s because the wolf has shifted its grip. It chews on his elbow where the armor is missing, and it feels like the dog is trying to tear his arm clean off. His tendons are straining, barely holding him together. Or maybe that’s his armor. Past the snarling he can hear the horde, the pack and their paws clawing through the snow. 

He’s waiting, he’s waiting. He sucks in a breath and holds it, only for the other wolf to lunge and bite down onto his throat. He can’t breathe, it’s holding his breath, he’s holding his breath. 

The pearl breaks, finally. Thank the gods. His tithe is paid. 

Dream is yanked out of the jaws of the wolves, and it hurts just like every time. It feels like he’s been transported to the bottom of the world, crushed under hundreds of layers of sand and rock. The space between worlds is tiny, the width of an atom, and he has to fit inside of it for the briefest of moments as he’s transported by the lingering abilities of the enderpearl. Not too bad for humans, but he’s a bit more than that. 

And then he’s back, and good gods it’s cold. No wonder the pearl took so long to break, it had landed in the water. 

Dream flails, still feeling like his arm is being pulled apart. At least pearls didn’t change which direction he was facing. He’d been lying on his back, so even though he’s submerged in the dark, murky depths of this gods-damned ice water he knows which direction the surface is. 

The time between that though and the next, as he tries to drag himself up onto the shore of the water, slips between his fingers. Dream thinks, as he wheezes and coughs, that the cold must be messing with his head. He doesn’t remember swimming up, or the trail of broken ice behind him in the water, or where the blood on the snow came from. His blood looks sweet against the white snow, cherry and raspberry, and even steams for a moment. 

He can’t catch his breath. 

He drags his bag after him. 

Dream’s bracer is gone, no doubt lost to the wolves. His wounds are laid bare, open to the sun and the snow. He can’t blame the pearl for having trouble discerning where Dream ends and where the dogs had started, and he hadn’t helped. Maybe if he had tried to separate himself, maybe if he had ran faster, maybe if he had knocked, or kept better track of Tommy. 

He leaves a stark red streak of blood as he crawls out of the water. Dream decides right there and then that he hates the snow. This biome can rot, for all he cares. Techno and his wolves have settled in a horrid landscape, and they can have it. Fuck, he’s freezing. His breaths are cold and shallow, but they still plume in the air, small puffs of condensation immediately whipped away by the wind. The cold brine of the water has soaked him right to his bone, his ribs ache and his lungs refuse to stretch and breathe. 

Where is the portal? 

The question overwhelms his muddled brain. He’s not out of the woods yet. 

Everything blurs to patterns and crystals of white and red, and sometimes the peach purple of his fingertips. His next coherent thought is reveling in the feeling of obsidian, the smooth black ripples of its surface under his hands, the sharp corners and ridges. He cuts his palm on the portal and doesn’t realize until he tries to rest his hand on the still-sheathed sword, and his hand slips. He can’t feel it. There’s already snow forming ice crystals on the puddle that forms in his palm as he stares. 

Perhaps his tithe isn’t paid yet. He still has too much to lose. 

He tumbles through the portal, grateful that the damned things are more stable than pearls. He can’t tell if he’s hallucinating, or if he can actually hear the braying of the hounds not too far behind him as the purple of the portal envelopes him and sends him away. At worst the portal makes him nauseous, but that might be because he’s been swallowing the blood from his lungs. 

The nether is hot, but he can’t feel it in his frozen limbs, cold, wet clothes, the numbness in his face. Dream fumbles in his bag for more of the pearls, absolutely certain that he won’t make the perilous walk back to the hub. He sees them spill, scatter across the bouncy surface of netherrack. Risk. Chance. Randomness. 

He comes to again, stumbling away from the portal in the overworld, grateful for the feeling of grass under his feet. His clothes are less sodden, but still uncomfortably damp, and it doesn’t help that the sky is overcast, with the lightest sprinkling of rain coming down his way. Every breath feels like it’s tearing open new wounds in his lungs, and he wheezes and hacks up blood, no doubt thanks to the second pearl. And it still feels a bit like he has a wolf trying to crush his windpipe. 

It’s here that he stops and really takes stock of himself, as he struggles over a grassy hill. His sword arm is shredded and missing armor, his leg still has teeth embedded in the skin and the leather straps of his armor , his throat - he can’t see it, but he’s been clutching at it trying to stem some of the bleeding. If a carotid had actually been pierced, he assumes he’d be dead by now, so Dream will take the fact that he isn’t as a good sign. And of course there’s the pressure damage from using enderpearls. 

He has no home. Not anywhere close. Dream heaves a shuddering breath, as he recalls that his base had been blown up by… by… someone. He can’t remember. He’s not going to make it much further, but he needs to take cover. Somewhere where he won’t be found, where no one will see him like this, and no one will ever know it was this bad. Given an inch, the people of this land would take a hundred miles. 

No weakness, no soft spots. 

Blindly, Dream continues onwards. Puffy, perhaps, would take him in, but not without too many questions. Questions he can’t answer, and he isn’t inclined to owe anyone a debt. Sapnap is too likely to run his mouth. Sam… Sam is… his house is -

He doesn’t realize that the unthinking, wild part of his brain has already solved this riddle until he’s standing on the bridge in front of George’s abandoned house. The facade has largely been rebuilt after being burned, with the exception of a few hardly noticeable places where the wood is just a little too dark. Just the facade, though. He’s pretty sure the inside is still barren and unfinished. Not even large enough to actually be called a house. A good place to hide. It’s not like anyone’s going to come looking for him here, and George is never home anyways.

Dream shoulders the door open, too exhausted to care that he’s leaving a trail of blood. He prays to himself that it will start raining properly soon, clear away the signs of his passing. Or maybe the blood over the threshold will keep everyone out. 

He stumbles, not realizing that the rock floor has been carved out in preparation for putting in flooring, but that none has been installed. The step down is an unpleasant surprise, and he unwittingly steps down with his injured leg, only for it to collapse underneath him. Dream falls, tumbles in the dark. He doesn't get back up.

Finally. Not quite safe, but not in danger. 

Alone. 

**Author's Note:**

> a little whump / injury idea I had a while ago (I think i wrote the first like 1 or 2k words about three weeks ago). originally I was going to do some scenes where George finds him and they have like some kind of frank / meaningful discussion, but I have been neglecting my other projects for too long. if you feel like writing a sequel please feel free, I think that'd be very cool as I tend to just write sad stuff and never the fluff/recovery. 
> 
> beginning quote is from beowulf


End file.
